JP4093248B2 - Information provision system using e-mail - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an information providing system that provides various types of information using an electronic mail system that exchanges messages between clients via a communication network such as the Internet.

Recently, with the development of wired or wireless communication networks such as the Internet and the widespread use of high-speed communication environments (eg ADSL, FTTH, CATV, high-speed wireless LAN, third-generation mobile phones, etc.) Acquisition of various information is widely performed. As an example of this, for example, by registering one's e-mail address in advance with respect to an information provider providing information desired by the user, information on a specific genre from the information provider is described / 2. Description of the Related Art A so-called mail magazine is known in which an attached electronic mail is periodically sent to a user's mobile phone terminal, personal computer terminal or the like (referred to as a user client). However, the e-mail magazine is sent unilaterally and regularly regardless of whether the user needs information or not. Therefore, the user cannot obtain useful latest information unless the mail magazine is sent when the user needs information, and the mail magazine is sent when the user does not need information. And it may be annoying for users because it is unnecessary information. Therefore, unlike the above-mentioned e-mail magazine, there is one in which information is provided only when the user needs information. For example, there is a technique described in Patent Document 1 shown below. According to this, users receive a variety of information as search results by an automatic reply email from the information provider in response to the sending of an e-mail with the search keywords related to the information described in the text. Information can be obtained.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-285045

  The information providing system based on the e-mail using the e-mail system as described above is easy to collect information, and the information is accumulated in the user client by e-mail and is highly referential. Very suitable for. However, when an information providing system that provides information as an e-mail magazine is employed, there is a disadvantage that unnecessary information is sent while the latest information cannot be obtained. On the other hand, when adopting an information providing system that provides information based on a search keyword described in an e-mail body, the user has to bother sending an e-mail describing the search keyword only for the purpose of search. troublesome. Therefore, there has been a demand for an e-mail-based information providing system that solves these problems, that is, an information providing system that can simply provide information intended by the user by e-mail and only when the user needs it. However, there has never been such a thing.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and provides an information providing system using an e-mail system that enables easy acquisition of appropriate information by e-mail when a user desires. For the purpose.

An information providing system according to the present invention is an information providing system using electronic mail transmitted / received between client terminals via a mail server, and shows a first character string indicating a mail transmission destination and an arbitrary information command. A client terminal that transmits an e-mail addressed to an information command character string composed of a second character string, and an information providing server that stores various types of information that can be provided to the client terminal in association with the information command; The mail server interprets the information command character string of the destination information of the electronic mail transmitted from the client terminal, and sends the information to the destination client terminal according to the first character string interpreted as the mail transmission destination. while delivering the sent e-mail, when interpreting the second character string indicating a further information command, And obtaining information corresponding to the character string from the information providing server, characterized by distributing the acquired information to the client terminal transmitting the e-mail as a mail message.

According to this invention, the client terminal transmits an e-mail having an information command character string composed of a first character string indicating a mail transmission destination and a second character string indicating an arbitrary information command as destination information. A mail server that transmits and receives electronic mail between client terminals interprets an information command character string of destination information of the electronic mail transmitted from the client terminal. Then, according to the first character string interpreted as the mail transmission destination, the transmitted electronic mail is distributed to the destination client terminal . Further, when the second character string indicating the information command is interpreted , information corresponding to the character string interpreted as the information command is associated with various information that can be provided to the client terminal with the information command. Obtained from the information providing server to be accumulated, and distributes the obtained information as a mail message to the client terminal that has transmitted the electronic mail. Thus, a user who desires to provide information simply sends an e-mail in which the second character string indicating an arbitrary information command is described in the destination information in addition to the first character string indicating the mail transmission destination. Information corresponding to the second character string described above can be acquired by e-mail . That is , the user can easily obtain information related to the text such as the requirements described in the sent e-mail, for example, in addition to sending the e-mail describing the requirements to the other party (destination). become.

  According to this invention, the user searches for information based on the information command described in the mail address in response to transmission of the email from the user, and returns the searched information to the user by email. There is an effect that it is possible to easily obtain appropriate information by e-mail whenever information is desired.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a system block diagram showing an embodiment of the overall configuration of the information providing system according to the present invention. The information providing system according to the present invention is a system that provides various types of information using an electronic mail system that exchanges messages between arbitrary user clients via a communication network such as the Internet. However, in this embodiment, in order to make the explanation easy to understand, the sender (user) uses the user client A (CA) and sends an e-mail to another user client B (CB) used by the receiver. An explanation will be given by taking as an example the provision of information to the user client A (CA), that is, the sender at the time of sending. The information providing system according to the present invention may have hardware other than that shown in FIG. 1, but here, a case where the minimum necessary resources are used will be described.

  As can be understood from FIG. 1, the information providing system shown in this embodiment is a mail transmission source that transmits an electronic mail (referred to as a transmission mail for convenience) to the user client B (CB) and an electronic device. User client A (CA) receiving information by mail (referred to as an information providing mail for convenience) and a transmission mail sent from the user client A (CA) are received (the received transmission mail is convenient The user client B (CB), which is a mail transmission destination, and a mail server A (MSa) necessary for sending and receiving electronic mail between the user client A (CA) and the user client B (CB) ) And a mail server B (MSb) and an information providing server IS for providing information. Each device is connected to a communication network such as the Internet. As will be described in detail later, each of the above-described devices (user client, mail server, information providing server) constituting the information providing system is configured by an independent computer including a CPU, a ROM, a RAM, a communication interface, and the like. Each device is connected via a wired or wireless communication network using the Internet, a dedicated line, or the like, thereby constructing an e-mail system that can send and receive e-mail between arbitrary user clients. .

  A user client A (CA) (hereinafter simply referred to as client A) follows a mail transfer protocol such as SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), and a mail server A having its own account (for example, “cliantA@foo.bar”). (MSa) is used to address a user client B (CB) (hereinafter simply referred to as client B) that has an account (for example, “cliantB@xxx.yyy”) in the mail server B (MSb). A transmission mail as shown in (a) is transmitted. The outgoing mail sent by the client A (CA) is once received by the mail server A (MSa) and transferred to the mail server B (MSb) via the mail server A (MSa). Client B (CB) refers to the presence or absence of outgoing mail stored on mail server B (MSb) according to a mail reception protocol such as POP (Post Office Network) or IMAP4 (Internet Messaging Access Protocol version 4). If necessary, the received mail is fetched from the mail server B (MSb) to display the received mail as shown in FIG. That is, the mail server A (MSa) and the mail server B (MSb) perform relaying or temporary storage of electronic mail in order to send and receive electronic mail between the client A (CA) and the client B (CB). Is. The client A and the client B correspond to, for example, a mobile communication terminal such as a mobile phone or a PDA or a personal computer terminal that can at least create, send / receive an e-mail, display an e-mail, and the like.

  The mail server A (MSa) has a function as a conventionally known normal mail server that performs relaying and temporary storage of electronic mail as described above. In addition, the mail server A (MSa) includes information on outgoing mail transmitted from the client A (CA). In response, the information providing function for the client A (CA) is executed. Although details will be described later, the information providing function will be briefly described. In the client A (CA) that desires to provide information, not only the recipient address but also the contents described in the “To:” field in the header information of the outgoing mail, In addition, a transmission mail to which a keyword related to desired information is added is transmitted to the mail server A (MSa). For example, as shown in FIG. 2A to be described later, a transmission mail in which the “To:” field is described as an information command character string such as “To: cliantB@xxx.yyy&shopping+Shibuya” is sent. The mail server A (MSa) that has received the outgoing mail interprets the contents of the information command character string described in the “To:” field and identifies the destination mail server (generally “@”). After that, the domain name indicates the address of the destination mail server). At this time, when the address of the transmission destination described in the header information is “xxx.yyy & shopping + Shibuya” (after @), the address does not actually exist as it is. Since it is an address, “&” is interpreted as a separator character, and “&” is interpreted as an address, and “&” and subsequent characters are interpreted as information commands. The mail server A (MSa) forwards the outgoing mail to the mail server B (MSb) according to the address, while requesting information corresponding to the information command from the information providing server IS (QUERY in the figure). Then, an information providing mail in which the response (RES in the figure) returned from the information providing server IS is described in the data portion is created, and this is shown in FIG. 2C or FIG. Provided as information provision mail addressed to (CA). The client A (CA) can be provided with information by receiving the information providing mail from the mail server A (MSa) according to a mail receiving protocol such as POP or IMAP4.

  The information providing server IS is a server computer having a plurality of DBs (databases). Each DB corresponds to the purpose (topics) of the information to be provided, and is categorized by, for example, “help”, “shopping”, “outing”, “sports”, “news”, “weather”, etc. One DB is allocated to each. Each DB stores information documents, images, etc. using arbitrary parameter characters as keys. For example, “shopping (topics) / Shibuya (parameter characters)” corresponds to a text document or an image file that introduces shopping information in the Shibuya area. The simplest information providing server IS corresponds to a so-called WWW (World Wide Web) server that performs a session using HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol), and when the information providing server IS is constructed with such a WWW server, topics are selected. It may be convenient because it can be constructed in the directory name directly under the server root so that the parameter characters correspond directly to the file name of the document. In addition, by setting the “default file name” in the information providing server IS, it is possible to prepare a document to be transmitted when no parameter character is specified. Furthermore, since it is possible to easily configure the response (RES) from the information providing server IS to include an error code and error content, there is no need to perform error processing on the mail server A (MSa). It may be possible to reduce the load on the processing on the server A (MSa) side.

  In addition, the update method of the information memorize | stored in each DB on information provision server IS may be arbitrary methods. For example, a person in charge of a server operator may manually register and update information one by one, or use a search site that automatically collects, classifies, and stores information on the Internet using a patrol search robot. A similar configuration may be adopted.

  Next, description contents of each electronic mail transmitted and received in the information providing system according to the present invention shown in FIG. 1 will be briefly described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram for explaining the description content of each electronic mail transmitted and received in the information providing system shown in FIG. 2A is a transmission mail transmitted by the sender (client A), FIG. 2B is a reception mail received by the receiver (client B), and FIG. 2C is returned to the sender (client A). FIG. 2 (d) shows the description contents of an error notification information providing mail returned to the sender (client A).

  As is conventionally known, electronic mail is roughly divided into header information and data information. The header information is a part describing the destination, title, etc. of the electronic mail according to a predetermined rule, and the data information is a part corresponding to a so-called mail text. In the e-mail shown in each figure of FIG. 2, “To:”, “From:”, and “Subject:” up to the third line from the top correspond to header information, and after the next blank line feed in the third line Corresponds to data information. In general, the “To:” field of the header information contains the recipient address of the email, the “From:” field contains the sender address of the email, and the “Subject:” field contains the email body. Each title is described. Therefore, in the outgoing mail transmitted from the client A to the client B shown in FIG. 2A and the received mail received by the client B from the client A shown in FIG. The recipient address “cliantB@xxx.yyy” of client B that is the destination of the outgoing mail (received mail) is the sender address of client A who is the sender of the outgoing mail (received mail) in the “From:” field. “CliantA@foo.bar” is described in the “Subject:” field as “Sunday Schedule” as the title of “Go Sunday Shibuya?” Described in the mail text. However, in the information providing system according to the present invention, in the “To:” field of the header information of the outgoing mail shown in FIG. 2A, the outgoing mail is like “To: cliantB@xxx.yyy&shopping+Shibuya”. In addition to the recipient address “cliantB@xxx.yyy” of the client B that is the recipient of (received mail), the keyword “shopping + Shibuya” for searching the sender's desired information is added along with the separator character “&”. In addition to sending an outgoing mail to the destination client B, by writing the information command character string, the client A who is the sender searches for information corresponding to the keyword “shopping + Shibuya”. It is possible to provide information to.

  In the normal information providing mail transmitted from the mail server A to the client A shown in FIG. 2C, the sender address “cliantA” of the client A that is the transmission destination of the information providing mail is displayed in the “To:” field. "@ Foo.bar" has the address "info@foo.bar" of the information providing server IS that is the information providing source of the information providing mail in the "From:" field, along with the service name "information providing service" and "Subject:" In the field, the title “shopping information Shibuya” in the provided information “Shibuya shopping information... Of course, the provided information is not limited to the text display but may be an image display or the like, or may be an attached file. In the error notification information providing mail transmitted from the mail server A to the client A shown in FIG. 2D, the sender address “client A” that is the transmission destination of the information providing mail is displayed in the “To:” field. “cliantA@foo.bar” has the address “info@foo.bar” of the information providing server IS that is the information providing source of the information providing mail in the “From:” field along with the service name “information providing service” and “Subject: In the "" field, the title "[ERROR] Information acquisition error" indicating that information cannot be acquired and an error is described. Information held by the information providing server IS (/ shopping), for example, as shown in the figure, “There is no requested information” indicating that there is no requested information in the mail body of the information providing mail of this error notification. / Keyfish (crab crab)), and keywords related to the stored information are displayed as “recommended keywords”. As described above, such an error notification may be generated by the information providing server IS and returned to the mail server A as a response (RES).

  Next, an example of a hardware configuration of either a client device or a server device (mail server, information providing server) that implements the information providing system according to the present invention will be briefly described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a hardware configuration showing an embodiment of the overall configuration of any one of the above devices. However, since each of the above devices can be described as using a similar hardware configuration, only one block diagram of the server device will be described as a representative.

  The server apparatus shown in this embodiment is controlled by a microcomputer comprising a microprocessor unit (CPU) 1, a read only memory (ROM) 2, and a random access memory (RAM) 3. The CPU 1 controls the operation of the entire server device. A read only memory (ROM) 2, a random access memory (RAM) 3, a hard disk device (HDD) 4, an interface 5, and other devices 6 are connected to the CPU 1 via a data and address bus 1D. The ROM 2 stores various programs executed by or referred to by the CPU 1, various data, and the like. The RAM 3 is a working memory that temporarily stores various information such as e-mails and commands transmitted from the client device, or various data generated when the CPU 1 executes a predetermined program, or a program currently being executed. And a memory for storing data related thereto. A predetermined address area of the RAM 3 is assigned to each function and used as a register, flag, table, memory, or the like.

  The hard disk device (HDD) 4 is an external storage device that stores various information such as e-mail received from the client device and other server devices, or various application programs executed by the CPU 1. Of course, it is not limited to a hard disk drive (HDD), and various removable external storage media such as a flexible disk (FD), a compact disk (CD), a magneto-optical disk (MO), a DVD (abbreviation of Digital Versatile Disk), etc. It may be a storage device that uses. Alternatively, a semiconductor memory or the like may be used. The interface 5 is connected to a communication network X such as a LAN, the Internet, or a telephone line. The interface 5 is connected to a client device or other server device via the communication network X, and between these connected devices. It is a communication interface for transmitting and receiving various information. For example, in the case of the mail server A (MSa) shown in FIG. 1, the outgoing mail transmitted from the client A (CA) connected via the communication network X is changed to the mail of the destination client B (CB). Deliver to server B (MSb). In addition, the mail server A (MSa) requests information provision by sending an information command to the information providing server IS, and the information provided from the information providing server IS along with this is provided as information providing mail to the client A ( Reply to CA). The interface 5 is not limited to a wired one but may be a wireless one. Moreover, you may have both. Other devices 6 include various devices necessary for configuring a general server computer, such as a display, a power switch, operation switches such as various control / setting buttons, a clock, and a power supply.

Each server device is preferably a computer device including a storage device such as a large-capacity hard disk device (HDD) 4 and a CPU 1 having a high processing capability. On the other hand, since each client device only has to create, send / receive an e-mail, display an e-mail, etc., a computer device such as a mobile phone or a PDA is sufficient.
Note that the client device and the server device are not limited to those having a hard disk device (HDD) 4 or other device 6 built in one device main body, but are configured separately and connected to each other using a predetermined interface. Needless to say, the present invention can be similarly applied to those configured to do so.

  In order for the sender to receive information provided by e-mail, the “To:” field, which is the header information of the e-mail, is described in a predetermined format, and the e-mail is transmitted to the destination in which the “To:” field is described. It is necessary. Therefore, the e-mail transmission / reception process executed by the client A (CA) and the mail server A (MSa) according to the system diagram shown in FIG. 1 will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of “e-mail transmission / reception processing”. However, in the e-mail transmission / reception process, the process proceeds while appropriately exchanging data between the client A (CA) and the mail server A (MSa). Further, the processing executed by each of the client A (CA) or the mail server A (MSa) is shown on one drawing, and the processing executed for each of the processing executed by the client A (CA) and each of the mail server A (MSa) is shown. A description will be given in order.

  First, the client A creates an electronic mail (step T1). At this time, if the user wants to receive information, “To: cliantB@xxx.yyy&shopping+Shibuya” (see FIG. 2A) for the “To:” field that is the header information of the email. In addition to the destination address “cliantB@xxx.yyy”, a predetermined separator character “&” defined in advance and a keyword “shopping + Shibuya” relating to information to be provided are described. If the information is not received, only the destination address may be described as “To: cliantB@xxx.yyy” in the “To:” field which is the header information of the e-mail. In step T2, an SMTP connection is started to a predetermined mail server A connected to the communication network X based on a sender's instruction. The mail server A that has received the SMTP connection request starts the SMTP connection to the client A that has requested the connection (step S1). Each mail server connected to the communication network X always operates in a processing standby state so as to receive an SMTP request from each corresponding client. In the mail server A that receives the SMTP request from the client A, the client A Starts an SMTP connection.

  The client A that is SMTP-connected with the mail server A transmits a transmission mail (mail data) to the mail server A (step T3). This outgoing mail is transmitted by sequentially sending data to the mail server A together with commands such as “HELO” (or “EHLO”), “MAIL FROM”, “RCPT TO”, “DATA”. . The mail server A that has received the mail data from the client A executes command analysis processing (step S2). This command analysis process will be described later (see FIG. 5 described later). After the command analysis processing, a response code is returned to the client A, and further, e-mail (mail data) is transferred to the destination client B and the transmission source client A (step S3). The e-mails sent to the destination client B and the sending client A have different contents as shown in FIG. That is, the transmission mail transmitted from the client A is transferred as it is to the client B as the reception mail (see FIG. 2B). Either a normal information providing mail (see FIG. 2C) or an error notification information providing mail (see FIG. 2D) is transferred to the client A according to the response content from the information providing server IS. The However, the transfer of the e-mail to the client A is performed only for the destination address such as “To: cliantB@xxx.yyy” in the “To:” field which is the header information of the e-mail transmitted from the client A. Do not execute if is described. The client A terminates the SMTP connection after sending the e-mail (mail data) (step T4). The mail server A terminates the SMTP connection in response to the “QUIT” command transmitted when the SMTP connection at the client A is terminated (step S4).

  Next, the “command analysis process” (see step S2 in FIG. 4) executed by the mail server A in the “e-mail transmission / reception process” described above will be described. FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating an example of “command analysis processing” executed by the mail server A.

In step S11, the reception buffer is confirmed. The contents stored in the receive buffer are, for example, “HELO sender host name” (“EHLO sender host name”), “MAIL FROM: sender email address”, “RCPT TO: recipient email address”, “DATA email” Each command such as “text” and “QUIT” and data, and the reception buffer is rewritten when any command is sent from the client A. In step S12, it is determined whether or not the content stored in the reception buffer is an “RCPT TO” command. If the content of the reception buffer is not the “RCPT TO” command (NO in step S12), processing corresponding to another command is executed (step S19), and a response code is returned to the client A (step S20). . If the content of the reception buffer is the “RCPT TO” command (YES in step S12), it is determined whether the “MAIL FROM” command has already been processed (step S13). If the “MAIL FROM” command has not yet been processed (NO in step S13), a response code is returned to the client A (step S20). In other words, since the “RCPT TO” command is not accepted unless the “MAIL FROM” command is processed, if the “MAIL FROM” command has not been processed yet, the processing described below regarding the “RCPT TO” command is performed. The process is terminated without executing.
Needless to say, the “MAIL FROM” command to be accepted prior to the “RCPT TO” command is not accepted unless the “HELO” command is processed.

  If the “MAIL FROM” command has already been processed (YES in step S13), a command separator character search is performed (step S14). In step S15, it is determined whether or not there is a separator character. That is, if the content of the reception buffer is an “RCPT TO” command, the recipient address is interpreted by interpreting the information command character string described in the “To:” field which is the header information of the email sent from the client A. And information commands are separated. The recipient address and the information command are separated by performing a character search to determine whether or not a predetermined separator character (for example, “&”) that is preset in the “To:” field is included. If no separator character is included in the “To:” field (NO in step S15), the recipient address is determined (step S21), and a response code is returned to the client A (step S22). In this case, the transmission mail is transmitted only to the client B as the reception mail, and the information providing mail is not transmitted to the client A. On the other hand, if a separator character is included in the “To:” field (YES in step S15), the first half of the separator character is separated as a recipient address and the second half of the separator character is separated as an information command (step S16). For example, if the “RCPT TO” command is “RCPT TO: cliantB@xxx.yyy&shopping+Shibuya”, “cliantB@xxx.yyy” before “&” is used as the recipient address. “Shopping + Shibuya” after “&” is separated as an information command. In step S17, a response code is returned. In step S18, based on the sender address acquired by the “MAIL FROM” command and the separated information command, an “information acquisition process” (see FIG. 6 to be described later) is called to deliver the process.

  Next, the “information acquisition process” (see step S18 in FIG. 5) executed in the “command analysis process” described above will be described. FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an example of “information acquisition processing” executed by the mail server A.

  In step S31, when an information command is received, it is interpreted. For example, when the separated “shopping + Shibuya” is received as an information command, the information command is divided by “+”, the first parameter “shopping” is the DB name, and the second parameter “ "Shibuya" is interpreted as a query parameter. In step S32, the query parameter (QUERY) is transmitted to the information providing server IS. That is, the information providing server IS is inquired of the DB (database) corresponding to the interpreted “shopping” for information specified by the parameter “Shibuya”. In step S33, it is determined whether a predetermined time has elapsed. In step S34, it is determined whether there is a response (RES) from the information providing server IS. That is, here, it is monitored whether there is a response from the information providing server IS before a predetermined time elapses. If there is no response from the information providing server IS until the predetermined time has elapsed (NO in step S34 and YES in step S33), error details are output to the mailbox of the sender address ( Step S37).

  On the other hand, if there is a response from the information providing server IS before the predetermined time has elapsed (NO in step S33 and YES in step S34), it is determined whether or not the response is an error. Determination is made (step S35). Here, as a type determined as an error, for example, when the information providing server IS does not respond first, there is no DB corresponding to the first parameter specified second, and third, the query parameter ( The second parameter) is not specified, and the fourth case is that there is no information corresponding to the query parameter. In the third and fourth cases, such an error may be determined by the information providing server IS and an error notification response may be returned (in this case, the response is determined as a normal response). . If the response is an error (YES in step S35), an e-mail indicating an error, that is, an error providing information providing mail (see FIG. 2D) is generated, and this is sent to the sender address mailbox. (Step S37). At this time, a list of DBs that can be used together with the contents of the error or a sentence explaining the outline of the DB may be attached to the error notification information providing mail. Note that when no query parameter is specified, default information (for example, recommended information) or the like may be returned. If the response is not an error (NO in step S35), the response content is output to the mailbox of the sender address (step S36). That is, when information is normally returned from the information providing server IS, an e-mail having the returned information as a body, that is, a normal information providing mail (see FIG. 2C) is created, and the sender Output to address mailbox.

  Each process described above is implemented by the CPU 1 in each device executing a predetermined program (software). Of course, the present invention can be implemented not only in the form of computer software but also in the form of a microprogram processed by a DSP (digital signal processor), and is not limited to this form of program, but is also a discrete circuit or an integrated circuit. Alternatively, it may be implemented in the form of a dedicated hardware device configured to include a large-scale integrated circuit or a gate array.

  If it does as mentioned above, when a sender wants, suitable information will be easily acquirable by an electronic mail here. In other words, since the sender can obtain the necessary information by e-mail at the same time as sending the outgoing mail, it does not bother creating and sending the e-mail for acquiring information separately from the outgoing mail as in the past. It's fine and it doesn't take time. In addition, since the sender can directly specify information that the sender wants directly, accurate information can be obtained. As described above, the information providing system according to the present invention can provide convenience and entertainment that are not found in the conventional electronic mail service.

In addition, although what performed the information acquisition process in the mail server A of a transmission side was shown, you may make it make the mail server B of a reception side perform an information acquisition process not only in this. For example, when the original host name is “xxx.yyy”, an address such as “info shopping.yyy” is associated with the information providing server IS (in this case, a host name corresponding to the information topic to be provided is acquired in advance). Information provision may be executed in “info shopping.yyy” (the entity may be the same as “xxx.yyy”). In this case, the mail server B on the receiving side interprets the host name of the recipient address as an information command.
In the above-described embodiment, an example in which basic SMTP, POP, or IMAP4 is used as a protocol related to transmission / reception of an e-mail has been described. However, other protocols may be used as a matter of course.
It should be noted that the email address of the user who wants to provide information may be registered in advance, and the information provision may be performed only for emails from registered users (in such a case, unregistered users will receive “ If "cliantB@xxx.yyy&shopping+Shibuya" is specified, an error notification indicating undeliverable is returned because the host address is invalid).
The information command is composed of “DB name” and “parameter”, but “parameter” may be omitted. For example, when the provided information is fortune-telling or the latest current news, it is not necessary to specify parameters.

Although the information providing server IS has previously constructed a DB having a structure of “DB name” and “parameter”, the information providing server IS has the same configuration as a well-known information search service host, and the information command is directly used as a query parameter. It may be used as a keyword for (QUERY). Or you may redirect to an information search service host as it is.
The information providing mail may be sent not only to the sending client A but also to the sending client B separately from the sending mail. In such a case, the sender may be able to specify whether or not to send the information providing mail to the destination client B using a specific command string. Alternatively, the mail server A may have information on whether or not to send the information providing mail to the transmission destination.
If the sender sends a blank e-mail with his / her address (that is, no description in the e-mail body), only the information is acquired without sending an e-mail to other clients. It goes without saying that the information providing mail can be returned to the sender.
The example in which the information command is described in the “To:” field of the header information of the e-mail has been described, but the information command may be described in another field.

1 is a system block diagram illustrating an example of an overall configuration of an information providing system according to the present invention. FIGS. 2A and 2B are diagrams for explaining the description contents of an electronic mail transmitted and received between clients, FIG. 2A is a transmitted mail, FIG. 2B is a received mail, FIG. FIG. 2D is an information providing mail for error notification. FIG. 2 is a hardware configuration block diagram illustrating an example of the overall configuration of any one of the client and the server illustrated in FIG. 1. It is a flowchart which shows one Example of a mail transmission / reception process. It is a flowchart which shows one Example of the command analysis process performed with a mail server. It is a flowchart which shows one Example of the information acquisition process performed with a mail server.

Explanation of symbols

1 ... CPU, 2 ... ROM, 3 ... RAM, 4 ... HDD, 5 ... interface, 6 ... other devices, X ... communication network, 1D ... data and address bus, CA (CB) ... user client, IS ... information providing server , MSa (MSb) ... mail server

Claims (2)

An information providing system using electronic mail transmitted and received between client terminals via a mail server,
A client terminal that transmits an e-mail addressed to an information command character string composed of a first character string indicating a mail transmission destination and a second character string indicating an arbitrary information command;
An information providing server that stores various types of information that can be provided to the client terminal in association with the information command;
The mail server interprets the information command character string of the destination information of the electronic mail transmitted from the client terminal, and transmits the transmitted electronic mail to the destination client terminal according to the first character string interpreted as the mail transmission destination. When the second character string indicating the information command is further interpreted while delivering the mail, the information corresponding to the character string is acquired from the information providing server and sent to the client terminal that has transmitted the e-mail. An information providing system that distributes the acquired information as a mail message.   2. The information according to claim 1, wherein the information command character string used as the destination information of the electronic mail is a character string in which an original electronic mail address and an arbitrary information command are separated by a predetermined separator character. Offer system.

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